Haiti’s PM fires bank chief amid bank bribery scandal

Haitian Prime Minister Garry Conille has fired the head of a commercial state bank after he had alleged that three members of the country’s governing interim government had demanded bribes from him to remain as head honcho of the National Bank of Credit (BNC).

Raoul Pascal Pierre Louis thought he was doing the right thing by formally writing to Conille recently telling him that the council members, Louis Gérald Gilles, Smith Augustin and Emmanuel Vertilaire had approached him to fork out $758, 000 or a million local currency if he wanted to keep his job. Instead, Conille fired him for reasons that are still unclear to most.

The dismissal came as the Caribbean leaders sent their eminent persons mediation group to Haiti to continue helping its most populous member state settle down after three years of turmoil and prepare for general elections in the next two years. Former St. Lucian Prime Minister Kenneth Anthony and former Jamaican Prime Minister Bruce Golding arrived in Haiti this week along with advisers and top Caribbean Community officials for a series of meetings with stakeholders in the coming days.

Why PM Conille chose to fire him rather than launch a probe into the allegations remains unclear. The bank manager alleged that discussion about paying a bribe to the two men took place at an upscale hotel in Port Au Prince, the capital recently and at a dinner in the past month.

Ironically, under rules agreed to by Haitian officials and Caribbean leaders earlier this year, the top government position is to be rotated in the coming months with Augustin and Giles set to replace Conille in rotation early 26 when preparations for general elections to replace the interim administration should be in full swing.

“It has been decided to terminate your duties as chairman of the board of directors of the BNC,” read the letter from Conille. “I hereby inform you that by decision of the government, the regulator of the financial system, which is the Bank of the Republic of Haiti (BRH), has been asked to set up a management committee at the National Bank of Credit (BNC), pending the appointment and installation of a new board of directors.

Haiti has been beset by decades of corruption allegations against top officials but the current one could deal a significant blow to the council even as senior people in other segments have been quietly complaining that they too have been approached to pay bribes to keep their jobs.

And even as talks with CARICOM officials get underway this week, some other members of the nine-person interim administration have urged Conille to act against the three as the allegations have undermined the credibility of the transitional council even as it is fighting to stabilize the country since the July 2021 assassination of President Jovenel Moise. The constitutional terms of nearly every elected official have expired including the mandates of mayors of various towns.